Background
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was born on 1 March 1899 in Lauenburg, Pomerania. Despite his aristocratic genealogy, he grew up in poverty.
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was born on 1 March 1899 in Lauenburg, Pomerania. Despite his aristocratic genealogy, he grew up in poverty.
In November 1914, he volunteered for the Prussian Army and served throughout World War I. He was awarded the Iron Cross. After the war, Zelewski remained in the Reichswehr and fought against the Polish Silesian Uprisings. In 1924 he resigned his army commission (or was most likely discharged) and returned to his farm in Düringshof (Polish Bogdaniec in Gorzów Wielkopolski county). Zelewski enrolled with the border guards (Grenzschutz) the same year.
Soon after being reinstated in 1934 he advanced his own career during the Blood Purge by seeing that Anton Freiherr von Hoberg und Buchwald’s name was on the hit list. The latter’s only offense was holding a post von dem Bach wanted. After commanding SS and Gestapo units in East Prussia and Pomerania he was promoted to SS general in 1939, and in the Polish campaign participated personally in massacring Jews in Riga, Minsk (his headquarters), and Mogilev. Hitler had a special affection for the energetic thug.
Von dem Bach was made Higher SS and police chief in Russia with AG Center and Himmler’s special representative in charge of antipartisan operations. He also was a general of the Waffen-SS and frequently commanded Waffen-SS troops. In July 1943 Himmler put his hatchetman in charge of all antipartisan operations on the eastern front, then later that year sent him to Poland. There the Obergrup-penfuehrer was responsible for crushing the Warsaw uprising that began on 1 Aug 1944. The greatest excesses of this horrible affair were committed by Kaminski’s White Russian brigade of ex-POWs and Oskar Dirlewanger’s brigade of German convicts on probation. At the insistence of Guderian, who was supported by Himmler’s SS liaison officer, Fegelein, Hitler ordered withdrawal of these brigades. “Von dem Bach took the precaution of having Kaminski shot and thus disposed of a possibly dangerous witness”.
The uprising ended on 2 Oct 1944 after 63 days of house-to-house fighting and around-the-clock bombardment by air and siege artillery. One of the war’s most famous photographs shows a bareheaded and downcast Bor-Komorowski shaking hands with a smiling von dem Bach at the surrender. The Germans used the uprising as a pretext for destroying the Polish capital; Bach was ordered on 11 Oct 1944 to “raze Warsaw to the ground while the war is still going on and in so far as this is not contrary to military plans for the construction of strongpoints” first removing “all raw materials, all textiles, and all furniture”.
Bach reached Budapest on 13 Oct 1944 to support Skorzeny, whom Hitler had given the mission of stopping the Hungarian regent, Adm HORTHY, from making a separate peace with the Russians. To his disgust, von dem Bach was not allowed to use the monstrous 25-inch siege mortar he had gotten from Sevastopol to help in the demolition of Warsaw.
As a prosecution witness at Nuremberg the unrepentant Prussian insisted that he had only followed orders. Bach, who surprisingly faced no charges at Nuremberg, escaped extradition to Russia by claiming to have protected Soviet Jews from extermination by SS Rinsatzgruppen. But a Munich denazification court sentenced him in 1951 to 10 years of “special labor.” The sentence was suspended and von dent Bach ended up merely confined to his home in Franconia (Wistrich). In 1961, however, he was arrested for involvement in the Blood Purge (herein) and ordered to serve four and a half years in prison. Indicted again in 1962, he received a life sentence for murdering six Communists in 1933. Von dem Bach died 8 Mar 1972 in a prison hospital at Munich-Harlaching.
Bach-Zelewski was also responsible for many atrocities in which he took a personal part. On 31 October 1941, after 35,000 persons had been executed in Riga. He proudly wrote: There is not a Jew' left in Estonia.’ He also participated actively in massacres of Jews at Minsk and Mogilev in Belarus.
He was highly regarded by Hitler for his brutality and improvisational skills - he was able to conjure armies out of very unpromising material.
Physical Characteristics: A professional soldier from a Junker military family, handsome and typically East Prussian in manner.
Quotes from others about the person
Fuehrer said was “he was so clever he can do anything, get round anything.”